Tagged: oav

This article is NSFW and contains all kinds of fucked up shit. If you’re easily offended go here.

Here lies the second part of my ultra-violent anime review. As I explained in Part 1, the anime on this list for the most part, couldn’t be described as ‘good’ pieces of art or even ‘ok’. They’re interesting for several qualities that are very rare in today’s anime. They tend to be absurdly over the top, lack the restraint to stay away from politically incorrect motifs and they tend to have a hand-made rough aesthetic, which has almost disappeared since the age of VHS.

———————————————————————————————

Demon City Shinjuku (1988)

Demon City Shinjuku was originally a novel by master storyteller Hideyuki Kikuchi(author of Vampire Hunter D) and was adapted into an 80 minute OAV in 1988 by master animation director Yoshiaki Kawajiri(Neo-Tokyo, Wicked City, Ninja Scroll, Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust). Just from these two names you can see the direction Demon City Shinjuku would take.

Demon City Shinjuku begins with a sword fight on the roof of a skyscraper between the evil Rebi Ra and sword master Genichirou. Rebi Ra seeks to wield the massive powers of the demon void to create a land of hell and summon demons to rule the world… and he can shoot lasers out his sword. Rebi Ra bests Genichirou and during the fight, the massive powers wielded destroys Shinjuku with a great earthquake and turns it into a monster ridden wilderness. Rebi Ra states that he must wait ten years until the demon city is ready for the summoning.

my sideburns… are bleeding

Ten years later the world’s president is attacked by Rebi Ra. The late Genichirou’s son Kyoya Izayoi is approached by Genichirou’s old master Aguni Rai and is persuaded to enter Demon City Shinjuku to defeat Rebi Ra before the summoning in 3 days… with the president’s attractive daughter.

Despite the main protagonist Kyoya Izayoi being a chauvinist douchebag and the whole overplayed ‘damsel in distress’ plot, Demon City Shinjuku is surprisingly good. The atmosphere is dark and encompassing, the art design is great quality and the monsters are imaginative and badass. The look of Demon City Shinjuku resembles a more neon Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust. I would definitely go with the subs on this, however the dubs are so bad they’re kind of funny. The opening fight scene was also shown in Johnny Mnemonic with Keanu Reeves… cause late 80s anime are cool like that.

You Should Watch This If: You enjoy strobe lighting while watching monsters get disemboweled.

———————————————————————————————

Devilman(1972) + (1987, 1990)

Devilman started out as a manga series in 1972 which was also released as a television series that same year. It was created by Go Nagai who you’ll remember is also the creator of Violence Jack. Devilman is one of the most famous and well known early anime.

Devilman is about a teenager, Akira Fudo who’s parents are archaeologists. On a dig in Antarctica they discover an ancient demon in a cave and are immediately crushed by a cave-in. Akira, now an orphan, lives with his childhood friend Miki Makimura. Akira’s best friend Ryou Asuka soon approaches him and tells him of how Ryou’s father has killed himself after pulling his pet dog’s head off and trying to kill Ryou. It quickly becomes apparent that Ryou’s father(also an archaeologist) has discovered an ancient Mayan mask which had allowed an ancient primordial demon to possess him.

Ryou then proposes that the demons(who are all ancient life-forms that lived on earth before man) are about to wake up from their icy sleep and slaughter all the living creatures on earth. Ryou also proposes that they must unite with a Demon for the strangth to fight them, based on… the demon mask telling him. They then get trapped in the basement of Ryou’s house by the attacking demons… where there’s a dance party with lasers and nudity! In fact it has been Ryou’s plan all along to kill everyone down in his basement for a ‘black mass’ to summon demons and trap them within themselves; making Akira and Ryou powerful enough to fight. Ryou starts stabbing random people with a broken bottle and the dancers begin to turn into demons. Akira is possessed by a powerful demon, Amon, however it merges with Akira’s human spirit(because he wants to bone Miki) thus forming… Devilman a demon bent on killing… other demons! The prime demon then continues to send stronger and stronger demon’s to destroy Devilman and humanity.

worst dub ever!

Uh ok… so Devilman has one of the thinnest plots I’ve seen in any anime. It will only make sense to the most deranged minds. I also get the feeling that a metric fuckton of things got lost in translation, in the dub AND sub versions. The original 1972 Devilman anime is extremely hard to follow due to the lack of coherent story and characters not making any sense, yet it has some of the funniest(unintentionally) and ridiculous dialogue ever.

The two OVAs ‘Devilman: The birth'(1987) and ‘Devilman: The Demon Bird'(1990) follow a similar story of the first two episodes of the 1972 tv series, however the animation is way better, the story is a little easier to follow and there is much more gore and violent deaths aplenty.

Quality: So bad it’s good.

You Should Watch This If: You want to have a laugh with a few friends because this shit is ridiculous.

———————————————————————————————

Midori (1992)

Midori(also known as Shōjo Tsubaki ‘The Camellia Girl’) is a 1992 animated film by Hiroshi Harada, based off the manga ‘Mr. Arashi’s Amazing Freak Show’ by famous ero guro artist Suehiro Maruo. Suehiro maruo’s version was itself based on an old kamishibai story.

Midori is about a young girl of the same name who sells camellia flowers on the street. After her mother dies and is eaten by rats, she is taken in by a funfair freak show. All the performers in the freak show are sadistic and cruelly harass and abuse Midori in the most horrible ways imaginable(stomping on her puppies, rape etc.). When a dwarf magician/hypnotist joins the freak show and takes a liking to Midori. He protects her from the other freaks, but not for long.

Being a ero guro work, Midori is extremely graphic however there is a surprising amount of depth to it. Although Midori is on many counts disgusting, it also says something about the depravity and cruelty of the human race. How we take pleasure in another’s pain, how monsters are real people, not from mythology but from the womb of society; people we interact with everyday, and how that depravity is indeed something innately part of the human experience.

‘you will never know happiness as a human being’

Midori is different to other anime on this list in another way. It is a work of passion, created entirely by Hiroshi Harada over 5 years. Due to the content of Midori, Harada found it impossible to find funding and support for his project and used up his life savings on the film.

The entire film has been uploaded to youtube so you can view it here but don’t expect it to be up for long.

Quality: Extremely difficult to watch but amazing.

You Should Watch This If: If you can handle the darker stuff, and you want to watch something that will stay with you for a long time.

———————————————————————————————

Fist of the North Star (1984-1987)

Fist of the North Star or ‘Hokuto no Ken’ is a colossal 109 episode anime tv series adapted from the 1983 manga by Buronson. Fist of the North star is set in a post-apocalyptic nuclear wasteland, where large gangs of the strong rule by the fist. The main protagonist is Kenshiro, a certified badass warrior who’s martial art style Hokuto Shinken makes people explode in a gory burst of blood and guts.

Kenshiro wanders the wasteland protecting the weak and innocent with classic stoicism. You soon find out that the scars on his chest are from when he was defeated by Shin, the Fist of the South Star who stole Kenshiro’s fiance Yuria. Kenshiro then continues to pursue Shin and the large gang he is now leader of.

Fist of the North Star is one of those classic series that isn’t really good, but enjoyable nonetheless. It’s the kind of anime you keep coming back to time and time again even if the plot and characters are predictable and somewhat flat. The violence is also absurd and comedic. When Kenshiro uses his Fist of the North Star, hitting his enemies pressure points, they simply explode.

There at least 3 series of Fist of the North Star, and 2 animated films.

Quality: Dumb but enjoyable violence.

You Should Watch This If: If you don’t feel like thinking much and just want to watch Kenshiro bulldoze some superhuman mutants.

———————————————————————————————

Angel Cop (1989-1994)

Angel Cop is an anime OAV directed by Ichiro Itano which was released as 6 half hour episodes from 1989 to 1994. Angel Cop one of the more infamous ultra-violent anime out there from that period, known for it’s horrific dub and brutal death sequences.

Angel Cop is set in an alternate history where Japan is the largest economy in the world and communist terrorism is rife. Angel Cop follows ‘Angel’, an elite anti-terrorist police officer as she battles a terrorist group ‘the Red May’. As ‘the Red May’ begin to get wiped out by unknown and supernatural forces, it is clear that there is more to this than she thought.

Angel, the main protagonist is one of the most brutal, cardboard and unlikable protagonists you will find in any anime. She believes in getting the job done at any cost and she doesn’t care who dies while she does it. Her character doesn’t really develop so much as get angrier as the plot progresses.

Angel Cop suffers from what many anime from 80’s did… a terrible dub. Anime companies were trying to reach niche western markets of particularly action oriented fans and cyberpunks, so they treated their english dubs as with that in mind. Even though the original Japanese dialogue was pretty bad, the western dub makes it absurdly so… littered with a level of profanity that the western audiences under the watchful eye of censors and ratings systems are not used to.

Angel Cop was also involved in a lot of controversy over it’s editing for english speaking audiences. In the original Japanese edit, it is revealed that… Jews are trying to turn Japan into a dumping ground for nuclear waste, irradiating the population and lowering their standard of living. Not surprisingly Angel Cop was called out for it’s anti-Semitic plot points. When Angel Cop was adapted for western audiences, all traces of anti-Semetism were removed and the Jewish antagonists were replaced by American owned corporations.

Quality: Dumb and badly made but… kind of enjoyable. Like some sort of gore fast food.

You Should Watch This If: You’re interested in bad anime dubs and watching communists get set on fire by floating pre-pubescent girls… yeah!

———————————————————————————————

Urotsukidōji – Legend of the Overfiend (1989)

I remember when I was about 15 I walked down to my shitty local video store to rent a movie I could watch that night. Looking through the tiny anime section, I came upon the Urotsukidōji – Legend of the Overfiend dvd. It looked pretty sweet, the synopsis on the back of the case mentioned demons, monsters and the apocalypse. It was an 18+ DVD but I managed to hire it out anyway and took it home. That night my mouth hung open and I screamed ‘WHAAAT THEEEE FUUUUUCK’ repeatedly at the television… and this was the censored version.

Urotsukidōji – Legend of the Overfiend is a western theatrical version of a series of 3 OVAs released from 1987-1989. In 1994 it became the first animated film to be banned by the Australian censors. The version you could(eventually) get on dvd in the UK and Australia was heavily censored by the BBFC and OFLC respectively. They removed much of the ‘shocking’ material, but now thanks to the internet you can see the uncut versions… if you really want to.

Urotsukidōji is set in a world much like ours, however there are two parallel realms that shadow the human one. The realm of the Makai(demons) and the realm of the Jyujinkai(man-beasts) spawn other creatures into our world. There is also a 3000 year old prophecy that predicts the coming of the Overfiend, a creature of immense power that will unite the three realms into ‘a land of eternity’.

The story follows a man-beast Jyaku, his sister Megumi and their friend Kuroko. They have been on a 300 year long search for the Overfiend which has led them to a high school in Osaka. You are introduced to two of the students, a shy and perverted peeping tom Tatsuo Nagumo; and captain of the basketball team and jock, Akemi Ito.

Shit get’s real pretty quick. While Tatsuo is peeping on a teacher making out with her student, the teacher turns into a demon from the next realm and starts raping her with demon tentacle arms. Jyaku rocks up, watches for a bit then decides to defeat the demon with his spirit man-beast lasers, saving the girl that Tatsuo has fallen in love with. Next we are shown a scene where Akemi Ito is having 4-way in his apartment while looking very stern, with what I presume to be cheerleaders from his highschool. Suddenly Akemi’s erection turns into a blinding green light and all the cheerleaders run from the room. When Akemi’s dick stops glowing, he follows them into the hallway where he see’s their bloody corpses littering the floor. Some of the corpses start moving and turn into demons, revealing that Akemi is the Overfiend and a massive fight ensues. Urotsukidōji – Legend of the Overfiend just gets darker and darker from here on out.

Even though there is a ridiculous amount of tentacle rape and sex, I don’t think Urotsukidōji can be classified purely as hentai. I guess if you were really determined you could masturbate to it(if tentacles + disgusting rape fantasies are your thing), however i don’t think that’s entirely the purpose of this anime, as the story is too strong and there are way too many demons ripping each other’s faces off to be purely erotica.

Urotsukidōji – Legend of the Overfiend is without a doubt, the most fucked up disgusting anime I’ve seen to date. It’s absurd the amount of tentacles, rape, monsters, gore, sex and violence they crammed into a relatively short period of time. You’ll be following the story about demons having a fight etc…. and suddenly a corpse will come to life and start raping people. It’s easier to watch Urotsukidōji than films like Gaspar Noé’s ‘Irreversible’… but only just; and only because it’s so over the top that it’s absurd and divorced from reality.

It’s very rare that humans as a species astound me, but Urotsukidōji – Legend of the Overfiend does just this. I mean, a team of artists sat down with a vision and worked on this for house and hours… what the fuck man…. what the fuck!

Quality: One of the most fucked up and depraved pieces of art you’ll ever see. *slow clap*

You Should Watch This If: Your morbid curiosity compels you.

———————————————————————————————

This list isn’t the be all and end all of ultra-violent anime. Here are some violent outliers that didn’t really fit in to this list.

Ninja Scroll (1993) – One of the best anime films out there. Violent as hell but too good for this list.

Berserk (1997) – Great manga and anime series. Also too good for this list.